Open Bar: Subpoenaed by Congress, but still refusing to testify

[Doktor Howl]

I knew a few people online who were self-medicating with it, but I've since lost touch with those people.

Which bodes well, I guess.

[Faust]

*touches crystal, is tossed into ally behind dungeon by burly eastern European bouncer* NO TOUCH

[Cramulus]

last week, I had my first super annoying Dungeon World experience...

the game has a very improvisational quality, and sometimes this doesn't jive well with the 'tactical board game' background people bring in from D&D. One of the big challenges for D&D players is recognizing the borders of what you can improvise, and the game's handling of "the fiction" (ie the things people describe, the shared visualization of the scene) as more important than the mechanics.

So, for example, we were doing this scene where the party is being attacked by giant birds. One of the characters is an immolator, basically a fire mage. A bird swoops down, and while it can't carry him off, it does manage to drag him 20 feet away from his friends. Next, the fire mage gets kicked to the ground, and the bird steps on him.

At this point, I've given the other party members a few opportunities to react to this, but they don't want to sacrifice the position they've gained on the other giant bird, so they leave the fire mage alone.

I tell the Immolator, "you're on the ground and the bird's head is about eight feet up in the air above you. The giant foot is on your chest/waist, and the bird is about to start pecking you -- what do you do?"

Other people have been in that situation, and they tend to say "I roll to the side" (at which point I let them roll a Defy Danger check using dexterity), or "I push the bird off me" (Defy Danger using strength). The fire mage says "I take it! I headbutt the bird's beak as it pecks me"

This doesn't seem like it makes sense to me -- it's like trying to block a spear using your chest. You're basically just describing how you get hit. Meanwhile, the fire mage has an ability where, when they get damage, they can immediately summon a flaming weapon -- and he's used that a few times before, so I figured he was trying to pull a fire knife or something so he could slice his way free of the bird. So I confirm, "If you just headbutt the bird that's pecking you, you're not avoiding danger, you're going to take damage." there's some kind of missed connection here, he's not getting that I'm telling him that this move isn't going to work. So he says he does it anyway, and I roll damage, and he gets really upset.  But a real sharp kind of upset, where he's suddenly mad at me personally and begins throwing shade on the game and dropping fuck this's at me and the other players.

We kinda circle around this for a while, and the missed connection is that he thought he could roll Defy Danger using constitution (his 'good stat') to "endure" the attack. I clarify that rolling a Con check is more about things like - how long can you hold your breath? Can you still fight while poisoned? Can you force your way through the sandstorm? Can you finish casting your spell while distracted by pain? It's not meant to be "every time you get hit you can just roll a con check and not take any damage". The player then says that HE WILL NOT ACCEPT THIS and that I'm shutting down his role play and railroading him. And that I've removed all agency from his roleplay by putting him in a situation he can't escape from.

Another player tells him "all you had to do was say 'I try to dodge'." The fire mage says that his character would never do that.

Huh, wait, he's saying his character would never attempt to dodge anything...? "Yeah," he says, "I have a -1 to dex rolls, so it's impossible, I wouldn't even try."

"Dude," says another player, "you just have to roll a 7 using 2d6-1. It's not impossible." This logic doesn't work, and the fire mage says that the reason we play roleplaying games is to do the things our characters specialize in, and by denying his con check, I'm railroading him into failure. I'm kinda baffled by this point and say that not every tool works in every situation - you can't solve every problem with a Con check. And that part of my job as GM is to put you in tough situations where you have to do things you're not necessarily good at.

There's a lot more blah blah blah but ultimately I let him just roll a fuckin con check so we could get through the scene. He kinda alienated the other people at the table, too.


so we're playing again tonight -- I am hoping that a week later, he's got a better attitude about the game

[Cain]

My character is a dumbass who likes getting hurt.

[The Johnny]

last week, I had my first super annoying Dungeon World experience...

I once was getting into D&D, but the one experience I had just offput me to the whole thing...

Like the GM was also simultaneously a player, and "for some reason" his Paladin character had an overstated armor that made him practically invulnerable which was just so ZZZ and a blatant type of plot armor... like, the situations were fun and the scenarios and story seemed to have work put into them, but i just couldnt get over the fact that we were never in any kind of real danger of a possible party wipe scenario, which basicly meant that all of our agency was null and void... like i hypothetically could literally run it down and "play to lose" and we would win either way, so whats the fucking point?

Sure, there's the development of the story or ample range to goof off, but i felt that for the party it was a Disney theme park ride while were having our hand held at every step by the Paladin that has this weird omnipotent and paternal fantasy going on.

FeelsWeird man.

[Cramulus]

Yeah, if the DM has an adventurer character in the party, and that character does stuff other than give cryptic advice and mislead you, that's a big warning sign.

[Doktor Howl]

last week, I had my first super annoying Dungeon World experience...

I once was getting into D&D, but the one experience I had just offput me to the whole thing...

Like the GM was also simultaneously a player, and "for some reason" his Paladin character had an overstated armor that made him practically invulnerable which was just so ZZZ and a blatant type of plot armor... like, the situations were fun and the scenarios and story seemed to have work put into them, but i just couldnt get over the fact that we were never in any kind of real danger of a possible party wipe scenario, which basicly meant that all of our agency was null and void... like i hypothetically could literally run it down and "play to lose" and we would win either way, so whats the fucking point?

Sure, there's the development of the story or ample range to goof off, but i felt that for the party it was a Disney theme park ride while were having our hand held at every step by the Paladin that has this weird omnipotent and paternal fantasy going on.

FeelsWeird man.

DM's Old Character is a trope that describes how about 20% of all DMs fail at the expense of the players.

[Cain]

Yeah, if the DM has an adventurer character in the party, and that character does stuff other than give cryptic advice and mislead you, that's a big warning sign.

Some of my advice isn't misleading.

[LMNO]

From my admittedly limited experience with D&D, it sounds like no one really wanted to be DM for DM's sake, they all wanted to be PCs.

So you end up with a reluctant DM who still wants to be part of the adventure party.

From what I can tell, they're two very distinct roles, and DM isn't something you can half ass.

[Cain]

We kinda have a rotating DM role, that's open to those who want to do it.

However, it's based on the understanding that the DM will focus on DMing and so stand back from the combat or whatever. For example, our last adventure had us bravely navigating a ruin (so we could murder a man, for the price on his head). As In Character I'm the group leader anyway, I set the background for the contract, the location we are going to and so on.

Then I spent about 2 hours coming up with traps that could be disarmed by the people present, if they applied their skills correctly, and backup methods of disabling them if they fucked it up. Precisely one trap could be disarmed by myself (and that was only as a backup, due to similar skill overlap), the rest all gave someone else in the group, even the muscle, something to do in order to progress the story along. So the mages, rogues, elves etc all had a part to play. I basically stood to the side and helped with some occasional heavy lifting of stonework.

I then murdered the target in the cold blood, since I'd done nothing up until that point, but it was pretty clear the target was not a skilled combatant of any kind, up against a hardened mercenary, so I feel like this wasn't too gratuitous. Then we robbed his corpse and everyone got paid.

[Cramulus]

With a rotating-DM, that makes sense - it's only cheap if the DM's PC grabs the spotlight.

To explain why a character is there but isn't doing anything useful, my group uses this handwave we call "Dancing ineffectively in the background" -- like in the old Adam West Batman, a few people would be fighting, and a bunch of goons would be standing in the background snapping their fingers to the soundtrack but not doing anything helpful. If your character should be with the party, but you're not physically there, or it would be cheap for you to participate (ie, you're the DM), that's most of what you're doing.

Kinda similar:
In Larps, we call it "monsterbaiting" -- when the NPC solves the problem for the PCs, or when a scene is just two NPCs talking to each other.

[chaotic neutral observer]

I wouldn't try to use my head to block the attack of a pissed-off robin, let alone a crow, or a goose.  Giant carnivorous monster birds would be right out.

I would deflect the attack with something, anything (better even to lose an arm than a head), then go for the eyes.  Throwing a cape or a blanket over its head might gain a couple seconds.

[Cramulus]

I wouldn't try to use my head to block the attack of a pissed-off robin, let alone a crow, or a goose.  Giant carnivorous monster birds would be right out.

I would deflect the attack with something, anything (better even to lose an arm than a head), then go for the eyes.  Throwing a cape or a blanket over its head might gain a couple seconds.

ANY of that could have worked! Throwing something over its eyes is a great idea

If he had said something like "I shield my face using my arms" I might have been persuaded that this was a Constitution check.

[Doktor Howl]

I wouldn't try to use my head to block the attack of a pissed-off robin, let alone a crow, or a goose.  Giant carnivorous monster birds would be right out.

I would deflect the attack with something, anything (better even to lose an arm than a head), then go for the eyes.  Throwing a cape or a blanket over its head might gain a couple seconds.

ANY of that could have worked! Throwing something over its eyes is a great idea

If he had said something like "I shield my face using my arms" I might have been persuaded that this was a Constitution check.

Someone has to be the spooky pile of bones in the dungeon.  It's usually people that try to headbutt an ax beak or bullrush a gelatinous cube or something.

[Bruno]

I knew a few people online who were self-medicating with it, but I've since lost touch with those people.

Which bodes well, I guess.

I guess, except for the one who got the attention of Johns Hopkins in the first place, "pinksharkmark". He passed away a few years ago.